state of earliest childhood, from which we are separated by a hard law. In this subterranean kingdom slumber sweet feelings of home and the endless hopes of all that is to be. As Heinrich in the "Sunken Bell," by Gerhart Hauptmann, says, in speaking of his miraculous work:
"There is a song lost and forgotten,
A song of home, a love song of childhood,
Brought up from the depths of the fairy well,
Known to all, but yet unheard."
However, as Mephistopheles says, "The danger is great." These depths are enticing; they are the mother and—death. When the libido leaves the bright upper world, whether from the decision of the individual or from decreasing life force, then it sinks back into its own depths, into the source from which it has gushed forth, and turns back to that point of cleavage, the umbilicus, through which it once entered into this body. This point of cleavage is called the mother, because from her comes the source of the libido. Therefore, when some great work is to be accomplished, before which weak man recoils, doubtful of his strength, his libido returns to that source—and this is the dangerous moment, in which the decision takes place between annihilation and new life. If the libido remains arrested in the wonder kingdom of the inner world,[32] then the man has become for the world above a phantom, then he is practically dead or desperately ill.[33] But if the libido succeeds in tearing itself loose and pushing up into the world above, then a miracle appears. This journey to the underworld has been a
